The coronavirus outbreak brought the entire world and its economy to a standstill. As countries around the world struggle to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, the public health system everywhere remains stretched beyond its limit.
The coronavirus outbreak originated in Wuhan City, China, when pneumonia cases surfaced during the end of December 2019. A novel coronavirus that had never been seen in humans was identified as the cause by the Chinese authorities in the first week of January 2020. The World Health Organisation (WHO) named the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, in February. Meanwhile, the virus began to spread to other countries. The rapid rise in the number of cases outside mainland China led WHO to announce the outbreak as a pandemic on March 11, 2020. (A pandemic is described as the worldwide spread of a new disease.) By that time, over 118,000 cases had been reported in 114 countries, and nearly 4,300 people had died.
Coronaviruses (CoV) are a large family of viruses that cause illnesses ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases. Coronaviruses are zoonotic viruses, meaning they are transmitted from animals to humans. As the novel coronavirus causes respiratory disease and can be transmitted from person to person, standard precautionary measures such as frequent hand washing, maintaining social distancing, mask wearing and thorough cooking of meat and eggs were recommended to prevent the infection.
Besides, several countries imposed lockdown restrictions, quarantined infected people, created awareness about practising respiratory hygiene and other precautionary measures and maintained close surveillance to contain the spread of the disease. With cases continuing to spike, scientists around the world are working vigorously on developing vaccines and treatments for COVID-19. While the vaccines are said to be at various phases of trails, people are learning to live with the virus.
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